UK targets CO2 emissions from medium sized steel plants

SBB 6 April The UK’s Environment Agency brought in mandatory rules on 1 April to improve energy efficiency. The scheme is likely to impact steel re-rollers, fabricators, processors, end-users and possibly stockists using significant amounts of energy.

Wall Engineering, a structural steel engineering and fabricating company based in Norfolk, was the first organisation to register for the scheme, the agency tells
Steel Business Briefing in a statement.

The target of the rules is UK operations not covered by the European Union’s Emissions Trading System. It will require participating companies to buy carbon allowances at a cost of £12/tonne (€13.6/t) of CO2, which will ultimately be part of a cap-and-trade system, as under the ETS.

The qualifying threshold for initial registration is firms that had at least one half-hourly electricity meter in 2008. Of these an estimated 25% will have used at least 6,000 MWh of electricity – equivalent to a bill of around £500,000, and will need to buy allowances, says the agency.

The rules, dubbed the CRC energy efficiency scheme, will be phased in over three years. Once running companies will be required to monitor emissions and purchase allowances for each tonne of CO2 they emit each year. The first sale of allowances will occur in April 2011.

The agency tells SBB that for steel companies and end-users likely areas for efficiency improvements will include motors and drives, compressed air and process heating and drying.